Mandela the pragmatist

[sheshe2]

Snip

While looking for images to go with this post, I was struck by the power of Nelson Mandela's smile. It reaches out and grabs you and is there in his eyes even when not present on his lips.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-grbdsGtOpi4/UqHwW7cdLaI/AAAAAAAABnU/rDhLKZ-UkRs/s320/Mandela+1.j

I believe that Mandela was a truly joyful man. But according to Stengel, that smile had a pragmatic role to play as well.

When Mandela was running for the presidency in 1994, he knew that symbols mattered as much as substance. He was never a great public speaker, and people often tuned out what he was saying after the first few minutes. But it was the iconography that people understood. When he was on a platform, he would always do the toyi-toyi, the township dance that was an emblem of the struggle. But more important was that dazzling, beatific, all-inclusive smile. For white South Africans, the smile symbolized Mandela's lack of bitterness and suggested that he was sympathetic to them. To black voters, it said, I am the happy warrior, and we will triumph. The ubiquitous ANC election poster was simply his smiling face. "The smile," says Ramaphosa, "was the message."


So while we venerate Nelson Mandela, let us not forget that he was a man who was grounded in what it took to engage in the struggle and win. Those are lessons in life and leadership we can all emulate.

Much more here~

http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2013/12/mandela-pragmatist.html